Now or Never
by Julsgracie
Summary: Alternative ending to New Moon--Edward/Bella reunion in her bedroom. Sequel to Edward's Phone Call, but you don't need to have read it to enjoy this. Alternating Edward POV/Bella POV. Complete.
1. Chapter 1: Edward

Sequel to _Edward's Phone Call._

This chapter is written from Edward's perspective.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me. **

_Nice readers want to make their authors happy. Review!!_

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There was something disturbingly surreal about being here. About feeling this soft wind on my face, about watching this ghostly familiar landscape fly past me. Something about running here—this very route—for the first time in nearly seven months.

The tension building inside of me was staggering. I felt as if I was on the verge of combustion—I knew that my body couldn't contain the amount of energy and adrenaline, of vicious anticipation, that was coursing through my veins.

All was the same, I could see now. Forks had never seemed so unchanging to me—like a ghost town, with some forbidden horror lurking in it's midst. It had lived so vividly in my thoughts and my dreams for the past half a year, that it was frightening to see the houses and trees and dark paved road as it sprawled out before me now. Beckoning me.

My mental capacity was dwindling as the pressure in my body increased. I didn't have to fear this place anymore, I told myself. I didn't have to dread this place anymore—I didn't have to shun myself from it ever again, make it impassable…_unreachable_…

It was nearly impossible for my mind to process this.

I pushed my legs harder, faster, whizzing by at what must have been invisible to the human eye.

Perhaps what my mind had been trying to convince me of was in fact a reality—I was in a dream. Despite how impossible that sounded, I felt entirely less awake—less _aware_—than I normally was, and if I had ever been less than human, it was during these past months.

I continued to move across the landscape in a deep trance.

I was so close now...any moment now and…

The colors around me began to blur, the shapes losing their last bit of sharpness as they quickly retreated by me on either side. The sound of a car honking its horn…a bird singing…someone shouting—it all washed away.

I was deafened by the sound of nothing…the eerie emptiness that always emerged when I was faced with no sounds but those that could be conjured only by my own silent form. Where I supposed there should be a thudding pulse, or racing heart, or frantic breathing, perhaps, there was only the tensed, heaving, echoing cry of nothing. A sound so intense—shrieking, raucous—that thudded and ripped like daggers along the inside of my skull.

Nearly there, now…

I assumed that I should feel great remorse for what I was about to do. That incessant part of my mind was still determined to convince me of my faults…convince me for the final time that being with her—breaking my promises—would only hurt her.

But the fierce, jubilant expectancy that flooded through me more forcefully with every step I took, managed somehow to overpower this.

Time was more irrelevant to me now than it ever had been before. I felt no loss at not knowing whether I had been traveling for seconds or hours or days…because time played its own spiteful games. Faster when it's perfect, slower when it's over…when you're alone.

I felt like I was secluded from realism. Enclosed, as if in a bubble that nothing could rupture. Life moved around me continuously, buzzing busily, but all my intuition was blurry. Like I was seeing something different—something stranger—than everyone around me was seeing. A separate sphere.

_I'm here. _

Her open window—the curtains fringing the edge as the breeze whipped at them, the soft light pouring out—was the most terrifying and beautiful thing that I had ever seen.

I couldn't feel the wood as it brushed smoothly against my fingertips; I couldn't feel my legs as they pushed off of the ground, lifting me up. My body felt disconnected from my mind, and my mind disconnected from my _self_—and I couldn't find the last piece of sanity anywhere.


	2. Chapter 2: Bella

This chapter is written from Bella's perspective.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me.**

_Nice readers want to make their authors happy. Review!!_

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Sometimes life stops.

People don't believe me when I tell them, but I know it's true. Because it has happened to me.

It's that moment when everything freezes, and your perspective evaporates, and the pieces of life that used to be clear to you don't make any sense. That moment when you can't possibly imagine what is going to happen next. That moment when you can't help but wonder if the next minute is actually going to take place at all, or if your life is just going to drop into space and begin to orbit aimlessly, like a lost planet.

Or maybe you're starting to believe that this isn't actually your life at all—that you were just some unfortunate bystander, thrust into another.

And all you can think is… _This is impossible. _

It's true. Don't believe me? Well I should know. Because it's happening to me.

_Right now._

"Bella?" Edward asked.

I had heard him slip through my window, but I couldn't look up. I just couldn't meet his gaze. I kept my eyes closed, feeling his presence sting the musty air and brush against my skin. Listening to the room pluse.

I struggled to separate his essence from the reality I knew, trying to understand if there was anyway at all that this could be possible. I felt like my eyes would be blinded from looking at him, broken, like the way they are if you stare up into the sun.

I lifted my head to settle my eyes upon him.

In that instant, my mind divided.

A piece of me—perhaps the most significant—wanted to attach myself to him in some way, weld my hands to his chest, or his face, or his arms. So that I could be sure, be absolutely positive, that there was nowhere he would ever go that I wouldn't go as well.

A piece of me wanted the bed I rested on to slide away from him, deeper into the wall, until I was breathing in the wood and insulation, hidden. To give me a moment to take him in, just a short moment. The sight of him in my room, standing before my window, was somehow frightening. Like the last seven months of my life were nothing more than some disturbing nightmare. That longest nightmare I've ever lived through.

But more than anything else, I wanted to cry.

His stance was rigid, but not defensive. I could see the tendons in his left hand, like ribbons curled around his skin.

His eyes were suddenly much larger than I remembered them. He watched me. I could feel the energy flowing through the room—flowing through my body, and his body, and every particle in between. Like my walls were strung with a hundred electrical currents. Like we were both wrapped up in it, trapped in intensity of our emotion.

"Edward," I said.


	3. Chapter 3: Edward

This chapter is written from Edward's perspective.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me.**

_Nice readers want to make their authors happy. __Review!!_

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Even before I lifted my eyes from the wood of her floor, I knew that she was there, waiting for me.

Her room was coated thickly upon every surface with her intoxicating perfume. Every particle in the air was saturated, dripping with her scent. I had forgotten not to breathe.

There was pain. The familiar, blazing sensation of my throat catching fire; the moist, wet feeling of the venom pooling in my mouth; the contraction of my muscles as they prepared to spring.

But it was faint. Weak. My body couldn't obtain it. I was overpowering myself.

Instead of a burden, her scent came to me as a relief. A marker.

_Absence makes the heart grow fonder_.

I never was sure if that applied to me. Perhaps it only worked for hearts that were still beating—hearts that were still alive. Perhaps an absence isn't qualified unless you can successfully stop thinking about the person for more than a few moments.

Perhaps it was just impossible for me to be any fonder of Bella Swan.

I knew that she had heard my entry; I had tried intentionally to make it noisier than I used to. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten her.

My eyes absorbed her still form on the bed; her legs tangled and dangling off the side, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders like a satin curtain. Her head was titled down, and I longed for her eyes and her pink lips and the beautiful curves of her face.

More than anything else I wished to speak her name, to experience what it would be like when she was actually with me, able to hear and respond. But I was afraid that if I spoke to her, touched her, looked at her for too long a time, she would disappear.

Bella's littlest finger on her left hand twitched. Her skin was as beautiful as it had always been, if not more. Cream and roses.

She was sitting about five feet from where I stood, and I could feel her already. Her body was pulsing with aroma and warmth and life.

She was real. _This _was real.

"Bella?"

A moment passed, and then she met my gaze.

She was so beautiful. She was _so_ beautiful.

The same deep, warm chocolate, fully of secrets, but I noticed something more. I could only prepare myself for a fleeting moment, before she overtook me.

As Bella gazed at me, I had the strange sensation that her eyes were seeing right through me. Uncovering _my _secrets. Picking me apart, piece by piece. Like I was an onion. Her eyes tore of layer after layer away, my lies and my fears, leaving only the truest, most honest piece of me.

Emotion swelled through me, drowning me. For a few moments I simply suffocated in it, trying to claw my way to the surface, to sanity, to the place where two plus two equals four and no one wishes it could be five.

"Edward," she said.

I had always considered myself one of many capabilities. Before I had met Bella, I had been over-estimating myself. But even now, I still believed that I was strong, that I _could_ be strong.

I was weak. Because there was no force in the world that could separate me from her, no power great enough, no threat horrifying enough. There was nothing to lose unless it was her, and there was world unless she was in it. There was nothing I wouldn't give, nothing I wouldn't endure, no possible torture I wouldn't accept.

There was nothing that could ever keep me away from Bella Swan again.

Not even myself.


	4. Chapter 4: Bella

This chapter is written from Bella's perspective.

_A quick note:_ Please be aware that every time I switch POVs, I _do _overlap in time a little bit. For example, when Bella says Edward's name in this chapter, it is the same time as when she said it in the Edward chapter previous. I don't want anyone to be comfused. It's true they are in shock, but really--I'm not going to have Bella just stand around repeating Edward's name for 3 hours.

_Also:_ I'm _so _sorry about the ridiclous span of time it took me to get this chapter out. I just started high school, and between that and pratice 6 days a week, I barely have time to eat, let alone write. I'll try harder. However, this means that Drama Club is going to be on hold until I finish this one, because no way can I write two stories at the same time. (It was dumb of my to upload Drama Club in the first place. I should really write my stories all the way through and _then _post them. You'd think I would know this by now.)

_ALSO:_ Please excuse the horribly short length of this chapter. I know what you're thinking. "NOT AGAIN!" I'm sorry guys, but Bella is _really _hard to write. I far prefer Edward over her any day. The next chapter will be much longer, pinkie-promise.

**Diclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me.**

_Nice readers want to make their authors happy. Review!! (By the way, when I say this, I MEAN IT.)_

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In the sparse piece of my mind that remained coherent, I wondered how long we could go on like this. Just like this…watching each other.

His beauty was devastating. Painful, almost. There were no words strong enough to define him, no way of expressing such intensity. He was life and courage and perfection and compassion and love, and when I looked into his eyes I saw everything that I would be forever barred from. Everything that I could never have.

"Edward."

My voice seemed small, like it had been swallowed up in the space between us. I leaned up from the bed, feeling my bare feet against the floor of my room.

I needed to be closer to him.

We were fully facing each other now. The shock and pretenses were beginning to wear away, and I had fallen easily into the realization that, even if I could not accept that this was more than a dream, I did not have to deal with the realities of it now.

I closed my eyes, just breathing and breathing and breathing. I listened to the room, watching the swirling blackness of my eyelids. His presence was like a heaviness that weighed down my entire world and locked everything into immobilization.

A fleeting, unnatural breeze brushed against my arms.

"_I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…_" he breathed into my ear. My eyes stayed closed as his arms slinked around me, pulling me against him. He rested his forehead against mine and we both breathed together.

I lost my body when he touched me, like my skin had a special programming just for him. Normalcy fell away; everything was now electrified, intensified, feeling a thousand times more real that it ever had. My mind became jumbled from the impact of it all.

I melted into him, curling my arms around his arms, weaving myself into him. It felt horrid to leave any surface of my body exposed to air.

Our breath mingled and stirred in the air that was becoming increasingly cooler. Cooler and cooler until my body was on fire.

I opened my eyes, and his were open too. Deep butterscotch. He was so close to me, his eyelashes were almost skimming my eyelids.

Right when I was sure that my mind would combust from the impact and pressure of everything, he kissed me.


	5. Final Chapter: Edward

This chapter is written from Edward's perspective.

This is the last chapter of _Now or Never_. I kind of hate to close it, but I began with Edward, and I want to end with Edward. Thank you so much for reading and for all your support.

If anyone is at all confused about anything that occurred in this chapter, _please _review or message me with your question. I think that this chapter is the most confusing of them, but I didn't want to put more explanation in because it would have ruined it. I will answer your message right away!

_Update--Oct. 25th (Don't read this if you don't want the ending to be spoiled): Alright guys, there seems to be a lot of confusion over the end. I've been getting e-mails with words like "ambiguity", so I think it's time to explain._

_The thing that Edward needs Bella to know is: "I love you and I'm sorry"_

_So, Bella is talking about knowing that he loves her, and the "me too" translates into "I love you too"_

**Diclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me.**

_If it the last thing you do, REVIEW THIS CHAPTER. This is your final chance to tell me what you thought of my story. I love it when people give me real feedback--suggestions/criticism and pointing out specific parts they liked. But anything you have to say is really, really appreciated. REALLY REALLY REALLY APPRECIATED._

Thanks again, and enjoy!

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"_I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…" _It seemed shameful to be uttering the words, shameful to be touching her, shameful to be existing.

But I couldn't stop myself. Somewhere, somehow, I had lost my undying self-control. My body was finally cut loose from the fierce restrictions of my mind, and now it seemed that my emotions, rather than my reasoning, were in control.

I had forgotten how very small she was, how warm, fragile… _so fragile_…just a careless flick of my wrist—of my _finger_—upon her neck was all it would take. And I would kill her.

I felt like my skin was burning.

I placed my forehead against hers, feeling the heat flow through the place where our heads touched, feeling the heat flow through her arms to my arms, through her chest to my chest. She was radiating.

An intense emptiness poured into the room, filling it up, until there was absolutely no sound. I was unsure whether or not the sensation was a working of my imagination. Maybe sound, like time, had paused to watch us.

I gazed at her eyelids, almost perfectly motionless. Light pink, like shy roses.

Her arms began to brush against me, her fingers pressing into my back. I realized that she was pulling me closer, and my breathing quickened.

I tilted my head as close to her as I dared. She opened her eyes and stared right at me.

For once in my life—simply for the only moment in my entire existence—I didn't think.

Our lips met, steaming with the scent of sweet reunion. Her mouth parted slightly in surprise, and I could taste her on my lips. I breathed in the scent of her throat, letting it sting me, scorch me, letting it burn me. Waiting for it to be over, and being unsurprised when it didn't cease.

I should have drawn away, pried myself from her. I knew this. Because that was what I owed Bella. I owed her safety. Already, she was threatened. _Already_, I was fighting it.

Which was more devastating of a fight? To deny myself her, or to deny myself her blood?

And which of the two would I lose?

For so long, I had told myself that I had always wanted it, I had told myself that I _would _always want it. But suddenly I was unsure. Did I? Did I really? Did _I _want to drain Bella of life?

I could feel _him_ now—him, towing this incomparable desire—him, lurking beneath the surface of my conscious self. Growling, moaning. A monster.

No matter the answer, it was my burden to shoulder.

Beyond all, I knew that I wanted her. This was something so unequivocally undisputable, something that would be entirely impossible to deny. I wanted Bella so, so much, in a thousand different ways. So much longing, so much desire. So much hunger.

My lips moved over hers, and hers over mine, slowly, carefully. The kiss was painful, because we both knew it would have to end. I just wanted to kiss her and kiss her, and—unless challenged otherwise—never stop.

I wanted to inhale her, lock her inside of me, where I would never have to face the prospect of being away from her. She kissed my soul, warming my entire body, warming my core, letting her flow through me. A fiery, healing surge, flooding me.

She was everywhere, she was everything.

I slipped my fingers into her hair, trying to exaggerate every movement, trying to slow down every movement. Trying to restrain every movement.

I slid my lips from hers and lowered them to her ear, exhaling her breath.

"Bella," I breathed, "I need you to know something."

But she grasped my head between her hands, and lowering my lips to hers for a few more moments.

"I know," she said finally, her eyes gazing at me. "I know. Me too."


End file.
